So you’ve decided that urban homesteading makes sense to you, now what? How do you start lessoning your dependence on the support systems of modern society? The first thing to ask yourself is why do I want to do this? Know your motivation.
Just like reading a map, you have to start with where you are, and know where you want to go, to map a route to your destination. Take an inventory of where you are in life and what you might already have, or do, that fits into a homesteading lifestyle. Do you already grow herbs in the window, or have you never even pulled up a weed? Do you own your home outright, making payments, or do you rent? Do you live in an apartment or a house in the suburbs? Have you accumulated a bunch of “things” or do you live with minimal stuff. Are you in debt or do you have a large savings? These are the kinds of things to think about.
Take the time to write down what you have to work with, items that you own, whether or not they have value for homesteading itself, you may decide to have a garage sale for the things that don’t help you in an urban homesteading lifestyle, but could help you get out of debt. You may have an old dehydrator in the garage that you forgot about, I did.
Write down what skills you that have, what experiences you’ve had. You may be surprised at some of the things you may have at least been exposed to through the course of your life. You may have helped your mother or grandmother with canning when you were a child.
Know exactly the state of your finances. If you have debt, start getting rid of it. A mortgage can be a different matter, although getting it paid off should also become a goal at some point, but the debt you need to get rid of first is consumer debt. Credit cards, car payments, stereo loans, anything that is costing you money every month. The more you have to pay to the credit card company, the less you have to change your life.
Get rid of unnecessary expenses like gym memberships, cable, etc., if you are in debt apply the amount you would have paid for these expenses to pay off your debt. You will be VERY pleasantly surprised how you will feel when you don’t have anymore debt. You will have freed yourself from one of the modern systems just by doing that.
Once you know where you are, and what you have to work with, where do you want to go? What makes sense to you? You should start a garden in whatever space you have available. Will you make your own clothes? Will you use solar and wind power to get yourself free of energy dependence? Will you add chickens and other livestock as you can? What is most important and/or easiest for your to start doing now? Most people can start some level of gardening while working on their debt.
After you know where you are, and where you want to go, you can start setting goals, short, medium and long term goals, to get to your destination. As mentioned already, one of your first main goals should be to be debt free, and there are things you can do that will both help toward that goal as well as another, like gardening. Whatever you can eat out of your garden you won’t have to pay for at the store.
In summary, if you want to get into urban homesteading today, determine where you are currently, where you want to go, then set goals and do the steps it takes to get you where you want to go. Some level of self sufficiency, be it partial or complete, will be your reward.
